I noticed on one of our linux servers someone had a custom prompt which basically included the current directory, which sort-of elliminated the need to use the pwd command to see where you were.

I would I change the default prompt in FreeBSD 4.10 for the BASH shell to do this ?

The sh shell doesn't give a path of the current directory without some fancy tricks. I leave root as sh and mine as bash. I think root should be crude to so you won't get in the habit of using it. If you need root much, setup sudo.

To change your shell to bash,,,, as root;
# chsh <user>
Change the shell to /usr/local/bin/bash

You'll be in the vi editor, so knowing some commands wouldn't hurt. You could change the /etc/passwd file. I just don't do it that way.

-X-

First...you have posted to several of my questions, thanks.

Two...I was able to change the shell to bash. Took a little reading, but got is going.

Now for S&G (sh*ts-n-giggles), I was interested in knowing how to change the prompt display. This is not pressing. I am working on several other things. I just thought it was pretty cool and conveinent.

Thanks

Get full linux kind of bashy stuff from my script : http://www.cyberciti.biz/nixcraft/pr...ts/enablels.sh

Note it was used on FreeBSD 5.2 but should work on 4.10

nixcraft gave you the standard prompt setting and a pretty good link to other neat stuff.

To find my prompt quickly, mainly when scrolling up through a long output, I have a color prompt. Just a little color to a boring screen. Below is in my /etc/profile. In all user's .bashrc and .bash_profile I have an entry;
source /etc/profile
that picks up the /etc/profile stuff. You can get bash to do lots of things. Have fun!

PS1USER="\[\033[0;36m\]\u@\h\[\033[0m\]\w\[\033[1;33m\]\[\033[0m\]"
case `id -u` in
0) PS1="`whoami`# ";;
*) PS1="${PS1USER}$ ";;
esac

here's more detail on syntax/color for bash prompts:

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerwork.../l-tip-prompt/

I have added the appropriate section to my .profile file.

Instead of interpretting the settings (eg. /u = username) the shell displays /u.

Anyone have any ideas?


Oh, and while I'm posting - any good BIND (DNS Server) on BSD resources?

Thanks!!

Look real carefully at your prompt setting. You should see the problem.

Check the Handbook for BIND.

Similar to all this - is there a way to make OpenBSD/FreeBSD to use green text? Thus, black background and green text? I just find it easier to read after many hours of staring at the consoles.

I followed the link given by Genesee and noticed the colour settings - does this enable me to change the colour of the standard text or just the prompt?

Thanks in advance.

Gsee

do you mean colors in a terminal? if so, for an xterm for example, you can use something like "xterm -bg black -fg green" (for background/foreground)

Sorry, I meant for example on my FreeBSD fileserver which has no X system - is it possible to get colours altered for just the plain non-X console?

gsee

Yes, please someone explain how to change the actual console text (not just the prompt) color. I've been trying to exactly this same thing and am going nuts trying different things and searching the web.

Help, thanks!

I thought I should let you know that I found this: (Have only tested it with FreeBSD so far).

If I add the line:

allscreens_flags="green black"

to my /etc/rc.conf and reboot - the system will come back up with green text on a black background. Haven't experimented with any other colour options as yet.

Gsee

edit: I just tested this on my OpenBSD box and it doesn't seem to work - Still definitely works with FreeBSD however.

Gsee